


Salt Skin

by moodiful819



Series: Mermaid AU [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Angst, Changing Tenses, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drama, F/M, Face-Sitting, Festivals, How Do I Tag, Little Mermaid Elements, Marathon Sex, Mermaids, Mershark Kakashi, Oral Sex, Pirate Queen Sakura, Pirates, Romance, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, Slow Burn, Smut, The infamous Mermaid-AU from tumblr, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9346964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodiful819/pseuds/moodiful819
Summary: In all her years at sea, Sakura had thought she’d finally seen everything. She is dead wrong. “Kakashi, what have you done?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally caught up with the cross-posting! Now this series will get updated at the same time as the tumblr one. But thank you to everyone who has commented and left kudos on here. They've been a joy to read and help me slog through my day!
> 
> *Set in the year-long gap in “Holy Grail.”

Years away from civilian life, Sakura can still remember the routine that would fall on her village when the sun went down. It doesn’t take much to remember how the streets would empty as children were called in for dinner and entire families were shut up in cottages. The hearth would glow through the window of every house, and she remembers how she thought they looked like fireflies. Her mother would scold her for staying up past her bedtime, and she remembers how she would wait until her parents were both asleep before slipping to the window, watching the lights extinguish one by one through the night. When the last glow of her neighbor’s candle finally slipped away, she would finally slip back into bed and see the ghosts of fireflies on her ceiling before finally going to sleep.

There is no such thing on her boat though. The last lanterns have long been turned down for the night, and while the memories can still be fresh in her head, she is still miles away from the warm glow of a firefly hearth. At this late hour, there is only the moonlight that streams through a porthole in her room, silvery, stark, and cold on the dark wood floor.

She stares up at the roof of her cabin and rakes her eyes over the grain of the boards for the twenty-seventh time. It is late–much too late for her to be awake at this hour. Her crew is fast asleep and the candle has long since burnt into oblivion on her desk. She has been staring up into the darkness for hours now, unable to sleep. The smell of smoke still curls up from a thick pool of wax, and against the gentle lap of waves against the hull, her eyes slam violently into their object of fixation again and again.

There is a notch in the ceiling.

She has never noticed it before, this gash in the wood above her head. She supposes that is the way of things. It is lit very faintly, a gleam of moonlight snagged on the lip of a dark shadow in the tightly-fitted planks. At three inches long and relatively shallow, the mark is inconsequential. Just one slight cosmetic flaw of many in her old, weathered, hand-me-down junker.

But it does not stop the steady whirr of her mind as she tries to puzzle its origin out. It shouldn’t matter to her, this one mark in a litany of gashes, explosions, and gapes that have happened on her ship, but it does. She cannot let it go for the life of her as she tries to remember who put it there. Was it her? Or was it a scar from Tsunade’s days as captain? Both were prone to lashing out with swords when provoked, but where Sakura’s folly is a product of her temper, Tsunade’s folly was a product of her intemperance—and for a second, Sakura swears she smells the sharp stink of sake under her nose.

The scent and the memory are short-lived though. Both are swallowed by the violent tide of her thoughts. She does not even feel like she is thinking anymore, instead floating on her consciousness like a piece of flotsam or jetsam. She feels battered and exhausted. All she wants is to sleep, and just when she feels like she is on the verge of attaining some semblance of peace, it hits her.

It’s like scattershot when it hits her. She can feel it tear through her flesh and bones, burning and aching where it rips through, and all at once, the last conversation she had with Kakashi raises its ugly head.

She tries to suppress it, tries to shove it down with stacking hands, but fragments slip through the gaps in her fingers into her ears. She can still hear the rasp of his voice in her head. All she had wanted to know was if there was a way to be a merperson like him. A way to be with him. She thought he’d be happy…

Instead, he looked like she had personally shot him in the gut. The look of anger and betrayal on his face, and how quickly it arose…

But it didn’t end there, and soon she was learning all sorts of things she hadn’t wanted to hear: how there had been another girl like her years ago, how they met and fell in love, how they found the magic to transform her like him and how they lived happily for a while until the magic consumed her—rotted her from the inside-out until she was babbling mad from the voices and violence in her head. She can still hear the vehemence in his voice as he told her that he loved her too much to have her destroy herself like that over him, and a bubble of pity rises up in her throat. Of course it does because she remembers how sharply haunted his face had become when he recalled how he’d found her tangled in the seaweed: cataract-stricken with melting fins and a chunk ripped out of her side from a predator’s maw. She cannot fathom the agony they both went through…

But another part of her is less charitable and more traitorous. Rin may have died horribly, but at least she was able to spend time with Kakashi in a way she will never know.

Sakura quickly shoves the thought aside. She is still human enough to recognize jealousy when it burns through her veins, and as she stares up at the ceiling, she swears she sees the green-eyed monster reflected back at her, even though she knows it is impossible.

But it’s hard to know what is possible and impossible anymore. She had never thought that Kakashi would hide secrets from her—but it was not a secret. Rin had never been a secret. She had just never asked—and how naïve of her to think that in the centuries he’d been alive, he’d never been in love. That he could never have felt this way before about a human.

Anger and disappointment knot themselves deep between her ribs. She feels them writhe underneath her skin, slipping and twisting amongst her bones. She abruptly throws the blanket off of her waist and sets her feet on the floor. If she couldn’t sleep before, she definitely wasn’t going to now with her head buzzing like this. With things she doesn’t want to think about right now, loud and cacophonous in her ears.

The relief she feels once on shore is palpable. For a moment, she stands on the shore of the island and lets it wash over her: the sand between her toes, the lap of the waves and the rhythmic slap of the ladder twisting in the wind against the boat. Ahead of her past the beach is a grove of jungle bush, too thick for the moon to pierce through with its light. Besides the members crews still asleep on the boat, she is alone and grateful for it.

She breathes with the beat of the tide. It’s so quiet here that the ocean is the only thing she can hear for miles, and it helps give her the peace she needs, if only for a moment. It is too easy to think of how this hunk of rock in the middle of the ocean was also the last place she saw Kakashi. Something about something he had to do and to meet him here three weeks from now. Her heart wants to chase the thought, but she can already feel the turbulence it brings her and buries it in thoughts of chores and captain’s responsibilities. They have arrived here three days early, and the sudden downtime gives her the perfect opportunity for some much needed boat maintenance. There are boards that need replacing, others that need waterproofing, and fuel that needs replenishing, she reminds herself, and once more the world is quiet in her head.

For a second, she wonders if this is a smart decision to wander away from the boat without telling anyone. If something were to happen to her while she was here, her crew wouldn’t know until it was too late, but she shakes away the thought. The island is deserted. Nothing here but wildlife that will not leave the safety of jungle cover and—

She spies a shadow at the end of the beach. Her body instinctively locks itself in for a fight, but it’s quickly overridden when she notes the figure’s nakedness. They are vulnerable—doubly-so with their back turned to her as they sit on their rock—and her next thought is shipwreck.

She jogs over, making sure that her feet hit the wet sand as to announce her presence. There is probably five seconds worth of distance between them, plenty of time for them to run away if they choose it, but they don’t. They just sit there, and Sakura slows to a stop a few feet behind them.

“Do you need any help?” she asks.

As they slowly get to their feet, Sakura runs through a basic medic itinerary in her head as she scans them from the feet up. She takes stock of them in pieces, and for a minute, they are not a person. Just a network of pale skin and scarring on trembling legs. Exhaustion maybe?

She is so busy with her diagnosis that she doesn’t realize who is towering over her until she sees his mismatched eyes and puts it together with the long, white scar she finds on his shoulder.

“Sakura…” He calls her name with longing, but she shakes her head in disbelief and cannot keep out the horror that leaks into her voice.

“Kakashi, _what have you done?”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Naruto gets a son (kind of) and Sakura gets a letter.

The past few days have sent Naruto’s head spinning. He thinks it’s probably the rude awakening he got just shortly after dawn yesterday, a rocking and churning of his hammock so violent he swore that a hurricane had caught them. It might as well have because as soon as he touched the floor, he was pulled into the hallway bleary-eyed. Most of the crew was still sleeping—hell, even Neji and Lee were still asleep—but that information didn’t seem to occur to his pink-haired friend as she strode towards her quarters with him in tow. He wanted to tell her that she was hurting him—that even if she could just reset his arm back into his socket, he’d rather not have it out in the first place—when she stopped in front of her door and turned back to look at her first mate.

“Help him,” she commanded shortly, but before he could ask who he was supposed to help, he had already been pushed inside with the door slamming shut behind him.

Wincing at the sound, Naruto let himself recover for a bit before turning to face the poor sap who had crossed Sakura this badly, only to find himself face to face with a somewhat familiar face.

The “Oh” dropped from his lips before he could help himself. He had certainly not been expecting this.

Looking back, he should have taken it as an omen. Kakashi somehow becoming human is the kind of magic one only hears of in fairytales. It is supposed to be a good thing, but somehow, nothing seems to be going according to plan.

Naruto watches as Kakashi talks to a member of the crew on the main deck. They are now well into their second day of “Kakashi is a human” and Naruto scans his ward with an indifferent stare. He had spent much of the previous morning teaching Kakashi how to do human things. It had been odd having to teach the former sea creature how to walk (especially since neither were used to him having legs), but he can’t help the odd twinge of pride as he watches Kakashi move about the boat. Though he is taller and undoubtedly older, he has still taught Kakashi the basics of being human and he wonders if it is weird to think of Kakashi as a son in a way. 

No, definitely weird, he tells himself. And in any event, if Kakashi had been his son, he would’ve made sure to have given him some better fitting clothes. Unfortunately, Kakashi is taller than everyone on the boat and though they had managed to scrounge up some clothing for him on short notice, there is no overlooking the fact that the clothes are a little too short and a little too tight for the former merperson. Rather, everything about Kakashi seems ill-fitted to this, and he tracks the glance Kakashi shoots towards their captain who is pointedly set on ignoring their guest.

Naruto cannot help the restless shift in his shoulders as Sakura continues to ignore Kakashi’s longing stares, even as Tenten shifts her gaze nervously between the two of them. If Sakura is aware of Tenten’s discomfort, she is ignoring it in favor of the weapons inventory report being shared between the two women. However, the rest of the crew is not as lucky, and anxiety pings across the deck like a loose rubber ball. Everyone knows what lays between the merperson and their captain—honestly, it is hard to miss—so the current state of things is…odd. When it was announced that he would sleep in Sakura’s quarters while she slept in the hammock in her office, they thought it would be a temporary thing—Kakashi would undoubtedly need some time to adjust to his legs and such—but she hadn’t spoken a word to him at dinner last night and had immediately shut herself up in her office afterwards without a word. If he didn’t know any better, he would think they were fighting.

“We have to put an end to this,” Neji grimaces as he observes the same scene. “The crew can’t take much more of this asinine cold war.”

Naruto solemnly nods. Another day of this and the entire crew would be jumping overboard, never to return again. They have to do something…

“You’re scheming something. If you hid your emotions better, maybe one day you’ll actually win at cards.”

Naruto deftly ignores the pot shot to wheel on their navigator. “I have an idea, but I’m going to need your help…”

* * *

“Have you seen this?”

It should have immediately occurred to Sakura that he hadn’t seen it. That Kakashi had not really left her room aside from a scant handful of times and only she and a few others had access to her private office where she found the letter. However, she was angry and indignant, and reason was the last thing on her mind.

_“‘Due to an inhospitable work environment, the crew under the leadership of Captain Haruno hereby relieve themselves of duty for the duration of the week until issues between the captain and her guest are resolved. To facilitate the process, we will vacate the premise of the ship to give the two parties involved the privacy needed to resolve their differences and restore peace on the ship,’”_ she read aloud from the piece of paper gripped tightly in her hand. She had been wondering why the ship had been so quiet when she went into the lastage to inspect the waterproofing, but to come back to this? The gall of her crew. This was Neji’s clean, flowing familiar script, but it stank of Naruto’s idea. They even had the nerve to sign it as “Your faithful crew.”

“Bunch of low-down, filthy—filthy _mutineers!”_ she shrieked, crumpling the letter with other choice words for her traitorous crew. She couldn’t believe the insult. No doubt it was Neji’s idea to make the language more hospitable to her—Naruto could never string words together like that without help—but it would have taken the entire crew to move the supplies they would need to survive off the boat for the next few days. After she found the letter, she had searched the shore for them—sand was still clinging to her boots—but wherever they were hiding from her wrath, they had done a good job.

“Gutless bunch of bilge-rat whoresons,” she snorted to herself quietly. She didn’t mean it, of course, but she was livid and needed some way to vent. Their claim was ridiculous. Inhospitable work environment? She’d been nothing but the perfect, accommodating captain—courteous, generous, _fair._

“I’ll show them an ‘inhospitable work environment,’” she groused. After all, the ship needed a fresh coat of tar…

Feeling eyes on her, she whipped her head in their direction. “What?” she snapped.

A few feet away, Kakashi stood as he had since she had come into the room, frozen with his back to the window. “It’s just…” he quietly began, swallowing thickly. “This is the first time you’ve talked to me.”

He said it like a thing of wonderment, as if he had just stumbled into a fairy’s grove and had been treated to all the stars in the galaxy. He was awed to the verge of disbelieving laughter, and she was struck by the sense of her own hypocrisy and cruelty.

And so she did the only thing she could do: she ran away, locking herself tightly in her office.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the third day, Sakura demands answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut starts here, children.

It is like being on a ghost ship. Though there are still rations in the pantry and oil in all the lanterns, there is no noise. She is used to hearing the groan of the wood at night when the crew is asleep, but it is another thing to hear it when she was awake. It is unnerving.

She is still avoiding Kakashi—an impressive fact given the size of the boat and the proximity of their rooms—and he politely? (respectfully?) seems to be obeying her wishes, for which she is grateful. Her mind is still a mess from the night she found him at the beach; the interaction yesterday has only made the noise in her head worse, and yet she still finds herself haunted by the quiet. She struggles to remember a time when the boat had been this lonely, and she wonders how her crew is faring (wherever they are).

To help keep her mind off things, she tries to keep busy. In the course of a day, she has managed to organize all of the reports, create new lists for rations and discrepancies, and has even managed to restring a few nets. She cannot remember the last time she was this productive, but it does nothing to fill the inordinate silence, and if it is crushing during the day, it is unbearable at night.

Maybe that is why she is here.

“Why did you do it?”

It’s the first real bit of conversation she’s had with him in three days. The question seems to catch him off-guard, which is silly because he should’ve known it would be the first thing she’d ask. She has spent the past three days trying to puzzle out his reasoning with nothing to show for it. She has lost sleep over this. She doesn’t like to admit it, but it’s all she thinks about when she isn’t preoccupied. She doesn’t _know_ anymore, and it’s made her edgy. Even as she stands in her bedroom, she hovers by the door, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice while Kakashi hangs by the lantern hanging by the corner, anchored by its light.

“Why did you do it?” she repeats, and this time, she cannot keep the frustration from leaking into her voice. The accusation in her voice is clear: she can’t be a mermaid, but it’s fine to for him to be human? **Hypocrite.**

“It’s only temporary,” he murmurs. “I only have six more days in this form.”

“I don’t care that it’s temporary. I’m asking why you did this,” she grits out patiently, but she can feel her enamel wear down with every syllable. It takes every ounce of her control not to march over there and throttle him. When he doesn’t answer her—doesn’t even look at her—she stomps over to him, placing herself right under his nose, daring him to ignore her once again. She’s so close she can feel his breath fan the crown of her head, and knows that he can feel her at his throat when she speaks.

“You and I both know that magic isn’t freely given. You must have given up something, and I’m asking what you gave up to do this. And you **_will_** tell me, Kakashi, because I **_deserve_** a goddamn **_answer_** _._ ”

He meets her determined gaze with one of his own. He looks as if he will take the secret to his grave, but then he takes a deep breath, pinches the space between his knit brows, and sighs it all out in defeat.

“Twenty years.” His answer is a resigned murmur. “I lose twenty years each time I drink the potion.”

“You can’t do this!”

“ **I don’t care!** And what should it matter to you? Even I used this spell ten times in a row, I would still outlive you,” he seethes, and though she knows it’s true—he’s told her of mermaids who were alive during the first crowning of kings over a thousand years ago—it is a bitter lash to them both.

His outburst drains him. She sees it in the way his shoulders sag and the taut lines on his face. He turns away from her and his face is half-shadowed by the light. It’s probably the first time he’s ever shouted in his life.

She places a hand on his shoulder. For a moment, he is startled—she can feel the tension under his skin—but instinctively, he relaxes into it. In a corner of her mind, she notes it’s the first time she’s touched him in three days too.

“Why did you do this?” Her voice is gentle, coaxing this time as she cups his cheek. She is no longer angry, just confused. She just wants to understand.

“I wanted to spend time with you—to be with you like you deserve,” he admits as he leans into her hand, losing himself in the unexpected ecstasy of it. Gods, he had missed her touch. “I wanted to know what it would be like to step into a town with you, dance with you. I don’t want you to miss out on what should be yours just because you decided to engage with a freak.”

Raising herself on her toes, she kisses him then, so suddenly and deeply that he feels like he has just plunged headfirst into the cold sea and all the blood has flushed into his skin. When she pulls back, her arms are still wrapped behind her neck and he can’t help but stare at the thin bridge of saliva connecting them both.

“I have never thought of you any less just because you had fins instead of legs,” she breathes, and she sounds as dazed and reverent as he feels.

They kiss again. First hesitantly, then more boldly. Whether it is he or she who initiates it, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that they keep kissing and she finds it an odd, new experience. She’s dry for starters, and now has to lean up to reach him. His height forces her body flush against his; her calves burn from the strain and her mind rings with comparisons. Under her legs, she expects his coiling wet tail, but she only finds thighs as lean and strong as her own. As she threads her hands into his hair, the ear-fins she loves so much are gone, but she finds his human ones are just as sensitive and greedily swallows his shuddering moan.

She steers them towards the bed, Kakashi following clumsily after, and his boots clunk heavily and awkwardly on the floorboards.

“Is there—is there anything you would like to do while I’m still human?” he asks between gasping breaths. “We can dance, stargaze…” He rattles off helplessly. He sounds like a lost little farm boy, and it’s cute and it’s quaint, but she’s burning and tired of his talk.

Reaching between them, she palms him through his breeches, watching as he fights against the sudden upwelling of sensation inside of him. His skin is so warm in her hand, and she waits until she can catch his eyes before speaking.

“Make love to me?”

Her voice is caught somewhere between a demand and a plea, but it doesn’t really matter what it sounds like because his lips are on her again, and it feels wonderful.

He moves down her body slowly. They both work her loose shirt over her head, tossing it to the floor while he unwinds the bandages wrapped around her chest. What they are doing is muscle memory at this point. They’ve done this dance before—multiple times—but he kisses her body as if for the first time, his lips slow and methodical as if memorizing her body and its feeling in his new skin. His hands follow the path his mouth cuts out, and she’s already grinding herself against his leg when he flips them over and slides her pants and underwear down in a motion as fluid as his spine.

She lifts her legs to step out of them and by the time she’s back on the bed, he’s already between her legs. His hands grip the outside of her thighs, cupping her—holding her—she’s still not sure which it is yet. All she knows is that he is eating her out with what feels like a new fervor despite it being the only thing they ever do. He’s so attentive, so dedicated to her needs—and fuck, if his face wasn’t sculpted just for grinding her clit into…

She’s burning too quickly now. She can feel the heat like a vice around her neck, choking her as his fingers curl inside her, and she whines her frustration as her nerves sizzle in her skin. She doesn’t have the cool kiss of the ocean air to soothe her skin in her cabin. Instead, it bakes like an oven, and she swears her spine is oozing through her pores.

She’s close. Too close for comfort. She wants more than to cum alone—but he’s nosing apart her folds as he’s thrusting into her just the way she likes—and how the hell is he breathing between her legs without any gills?

Breasts thrust forward, she rides his face with abandon. It feels too good to stop herself yet and she teases herself, grinds down on his chin—and he helps her, one hand clamped on her ass while the other molds her tit in his hand. All she can hear is the lewd slurping between her legs. Liquid is practically gushing out of her and he loves it judging by the way he tries to still her hips long enough to wring out more.

He wants to feel her cum in his mouth. It’s been far too long for both of them. She’s impressed that she’s held out for so long, but she wants to hold out longer and starts looking for anything to distract her from the sinful tongue beneath her.

The air is humid. The porthole is fogged so thickly, it’s opaque, and sweat is pouring over her like a second skin. It pools in the hollows on her body and turns her long curtain of hair into vines across her back.

Still not enough. She still feels him too sharply. Feels his tongue laving and probing. Feels his fingers clenched possessively over the curve of her hips.

She covers his hands with her own and smiles down at him, shakily. “Do you remember? The first time you pinned me down was in this room too.”

She doesn’t know what she was expecting by goading him like that, but she feels the growl and the bite of his fingers all the same. She’s going to have bruises. She can feel it as she fights his grip, slips down the length of his body with her own. Holding his wrists in each hand, she draws him into a kiss and rolls the taste of her over both their tongues.

When she feels him poised at her entrance, she pulls away and watches as Kakashi blinks with stars in his eyes.

“I’m going to fuck you.” Her voice is so heated, it’s as much a threat as it is a promise, but it’s too much to think about now as she guides himself into her and seats herself on the throne of his hips.

She doesn’t quite know how to describe it. Frankly because she hadn’t really thought about it before. She dreamed of it in a distant part of her mind—a tiny fantastical maybe in a corner of her head. Really, she had just wanted more than his fingers and his tongue, but now that it’s here, it’s an oddly human, oddly magical experience.

She feels him in the back of her throat. He’s large—larger than she’s had in a very long time. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the potion or if this is just naturally who he is (she suspects it’s the latter). Kakashi hasn’t stopped making noises since he entered her, somewhere between a long whine and a groan, as if his voice doesn’t know what to do with itself. She isn’t quite sure what to do with herself either and experimentally lifts her hips up. The feeling knocks the wind out of her—she can feel her eyes bulge out of her head, cooing to relieve the pressure. She feels stretched as she brings her hips back down. He fills her so completely, she can feel him at the tips of her hair. She’s only just seated herself down, but she already wants to do it again.

She wants to chase the feeling. The zenith has moved farther away and she relishes the challenge, moving in a slow steady rhythm that lets her feel from root to tip. Later, she’ll ride him hard and fast like they both need, but it’s their first time and she has a new part of his anatomy to play with. She’ll enjoy this as she should.

He’s enjoying this too; she’s made sure of it, and feels it through their interlaced hands. His grip clenches with every pass, every languid grind of her hips. His body is curled towards her so tightly that even with the height difference, they are nearly nose-to-nose. He’s so close that she can almost reach out to bite his lip for him and—

He cums, suddenly and loudly. His orgasm splashes inside of her, warm and thick, as he throws himself back into the bed, hips launching upwards to the point where she feels herself lift slightly. She yelps in surprise, but it’s drowned out in a shout she doesn’t quite understand. She wants to ask what it meant, but she doesn’t get the chance to. Too overwhelmed by the feeling, Kakashi has unfortunately passed out.

For a minute, Sakura just sits there, processing. To say she is surprised is an understatement, and she is not quite sure what to do from nothing short of shock. This was not the outcome she was expecting, but the more rational side of her mind is already plugging away, chiding her. Even if it wasn’t his first time having sex, it was his first time having sex in a human body. It would be natural that he’d be overwhelmed; she should have been more considerate.

At least she can make it up to him here.

Gingerly dislodging herself from him, she grabs another pillow from the chest under the window. He stirs briefly as she elevates his head with the pillow—a good sign—and watches as his breathing begins to even out. As he recovers, she allows herself to feel slightly gratified, even flattered in an odd way—but she quickly brushes it aside. Now, she waits.

Sakura does not have to wait long. Kakashi stirs slowly on the cot, head lolling on the pillows. His body feels boneless, heavy, and desperately uncooperative. All he wants to do it look around and find out the time. The clock on Sakura’s tiny desk says it’s three in the morning. Somehow, he’s lost a few hours of time and he can’t figure out for the life of him how they’ve disappeared.

“What happened?” he murmurs quietly to himself, a hand braced to a slightly woozy head. He feels tired and dehydrated, and a little cold to be honest…

Belatedly, he realizes he’s naked.

“You got overwhelmed when we were having sex, came inside me, and passed out,” a voice answers matter-of-factly against his chest, and he looks down to see Sakura reading a book by candlelight. In contrast to himself, he realizes quite quickly that she is naked and curled up against his side, and suddenly the memories come back all at once.

“I am so sorry,” he says immediately, a look of horror and embarrassment on his face. The shade of red is slightly different, she realizes, less pink and more concentrated around his ears. Sakura finds it endearing, and leans over to placate her attentive lover with a kiss on the nose.

“It’s okay. I understand. It’s essentially your first time all over again,” she says and his sigh of relief is audible. She isn’t mad, and he falls back onto the pillows feeling like he could sleep then and there without a care in the world.

“And…”

“And?” he asks, and watches as she leans up to drop the book on the desk behind them. His eyes follow the motion of her lean arms, her tender breasts so achingly close to his mouth that he can practically taste them again…

And then he sees where she settles, straddling his hips with a wicked grin as her pert nipples peak out through the curtain of her equally pink hair. Already, she feels him thickening against her, bucking into the palm of her hand, at the promise of what is to come.

“And…” She groans as she slips him in, lashes fluttering as her voice trembles like her bones. “I promise you’ll get better with practice.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just shameless, shameless smut.

Sakura is the first to rise. She has always been as captain, but even as a civilian child, she rose before dawn to feed the hens and tend to the animals in her yard. She’s industrious by instinct, even when there’s nothing to do. Even now with the ship mostly empty and no pressing responsibilities calling her name, she is alert and wide awake.

Which is more than she can say for her partner.

Sakura glances up at him, studying. She’s seen Kakashi’s sleeping face before during the few moments she’s caught him dozing in the shadow of the boat, but it’s different seeing it up close while pillowed on his chest. His face is more than a hazy swirl of lines and shadows amongst the waves now. She can actually see the peace that threads his brows and the faint parting of his lips when he sleeps. She can feel the warmth of his skin under her fingers and the tangle of their legs on the bed, bright, novel, and thrilling in the quiet morning.

Outside the porthole, the sun blazes at attention. Judging by the slant of the light, it is already ten in the morning. He would usually be awake now, but she supposes that he’s tuckered out from last night. He looks ready to sleep the entire day away if she lets him.

She shakes her head to herself. She had thought of taking him up into the crow’s nest today to show him the view, but she supposes she can let him sleep in a bit more. At least until she can clean them up a bit.

She presses a kiss into his cheek, watching him stir and mumble in his sleep with a giggle before gently disentangling themselves. It’s a difficult start—Kakashi seems to aggressively hone in on warmth—but she eventually succeeds and leaves the room, coming back with a bowl of water and a rag. She wets it and the aftermath of the previous night sloughs off easily, leaving her clean and refreshed, before she turns her attention to him. Unlike her previous task, the act of bathing him is much easier, aided by her previous medical training and the fact that Kakashi is sleeping like a sated log.

She drops the bowl and the rag off in the corner before crawling back into bed with him. He’s still asleep, still blissfully unaware of the world and with nothing better to do, she studies him. Her fingers walk over his scars. She tries to count them, tries to remember the stories attached to them, but there are too many to count so she leaves them behind like a tumbled box of beads. Instead, she settles for just feeling him, his downy hair, the hard muscles under his skin. He’s so warm that she almost purrs against him and the indolent feeling it brings her, but instead presses kisses into him as he sleeps.

It becomes a game almost as she pours affection onto his slumbering form. She kisses his chest, nips and sucks at his fingertips—does everything she can to tease him without waking him up. Her movements follow no real pattern, no real rhyme, but she finds herself moving downward until her cheek rests on his thigh and she is staring at his flaccid cock, slumbering and relaxed like the rest of him.

Leaning forward, she kisses him on a whim. Though she’s seen many penises in her lifetime as a result of her medical training, she’d never seen one of her bedmates in the morning light. They never stuck around long enough. Whenever the urge did arise, it was a very transactional affair—just another biological impulse that needed filling.

But now, it’s different. Now she has someone who stays, someone who she wants to stay. Someone who just made a little noise when she did that.

Her curiosity is instantly piqued. She can feel it rise like the hackles of a cat that is readying to pounce. Impulsively, she darts her tongue out to lick the side of him. She’s gone so quickly that the saliva is already gone on his skin, but the groan of him isn’t. It erupts deep from his throat and lodges itself in the burgeoning heat between her legs. She wants nothing more than to dip her fingers there—just to tease herself—but she wants to try out this new game she’s found more.

Same game, different rules, she tells herself. Before, she hadn’t been trying to wake him up, but now she isn’t quite sure of the endgame. All she really knows is that she wants to collect all the sounds he’s making right now as she tongues his balls and feels him harden against her cheek.

He wakes up like this. Balls drawn, voice thick with desire as well as sleep. He sits up dazedly, hissing as he accidentally drives himself deeper in her mouth, and looks at her bewildered.

“I—what?” He licks his lips to moisten them, and swallows thickly. “What are you doing?” He isn’t angry, just surprised. Confused. Did all humans wake up like this in the morning nowadays?

He watches as she slides his dick out of her mouth and feels himself almost spill at the audible ‘pop’ of his head leaving her lips. He half expects her to leave it there—which he really hopes she doesn’t because he’s drunk on the feeling already and so hard it hurts—but she merely hovers by the mast of his proud erection and makes sure he keeps his eyes on her as she presses a sensual kiss to the side of his cock.

“Morning,” she breathes and presses another kiss to his blunt head. She feels his hips jerk under her, feels him moving towards her, but she presses a stilling hand at the jut of his hipbone and pushes him back down. “Relax,” she coos as she hovers over him, blowing gently on his heated skin. He squirms helplessly, whining in the back of his throat as he tries to obey. It’s not enough, and he needs her to know that, needs her to recognize the fire that’s blazing in his skin.

He watches as she sucks him slowly into her mouth, inch by painful inch, before his vision goes white.

The visit to the crow’s nest is delayed.

* * *

It’s nightfall again. The room is dark save for the glow of a lantern above their heads and the stark light that filters in through the window. The cot creaks underneath them. They don’t talk, just pant and moan at each other in the solitude. It’s so quiet in the room that she swears she hears the heavy ‘tak’ of her sweat as it falls on his chest and she grinds her way to perfection on his hips.

“Shhhh.” She chastises him with a shushing finger. Her smile is gentle as a dove, but the look in her eye promises different. The first rule is no noise, and she slows her pace even further as punishment, languidly rising and falling on his length to the pace of a summer stroll. It maddens him—she can feel it in the restless shift of his legs further down the bed—but she passes it over for the delicious feeling of him against her walls and leisurely brushes him against that spot that makes her toes curl again and again.

She feels like a queen as she looks down on him. He looks at her like she’s one anyway, and it might be so. She’s the one in power here as she sets the pace, touching him only where she deigns necessary (which is only where they are joined, it seems). He has the option to stop the game at any time, they agreed. Just one word from him will stop her forever, but he withholds it. Instead, he chooses to submit to her demands, even if it means swallowing all his frustrations. Even if it means gripping the sheets so tightly that his fists tremble and ache as she rides him at her leisure and mockingly tweaks a nipple to tease him. She’s keeping him at the brink of orgasm and it’s harder to fight back the tide when all he wants to do is cover her with his hands and his mouth and feel her body beyond the point of her union.

His control is fraying. It’s brittle and worn and it shows. His hips chase hers unconsciously and he grits his teeth so hard that she’s surprised that he has any enamel left. His pupils are so blown out that she wonders if he can even see her anymore, and yet he has abstained this entire time, given into her wants.

She caressed his cheek with her hand tenderly. What power. What generosity. What patience, she thinks to herself. She wonders what she ever did to deserve such a wonderful creature between her legs and she thinks the look in his eyes is a mistake. The honor and pleasure are all hers.

She leans forward, planting her hands on his broad chest. “Touch me,” she orders, and he is instantly upon her, hands cupping and molding her flesh as he sits up to attack her with kisses and open-mouthed caresses. When he comes, it is a raw, angry shout—the cataclysmic birth of a new universe—but for her, it is the slow, languid twirl of a galaxy in motion and she settles gently on his chest with a sigh on her lips and stars in her hair.

* * *

The room reeks of sex.  It’s soaked into their hair, their skin, the sheets. The air is thick and humid. It feels like they’re breathing through a blanket, and condensation drips down the porthole glass in thick streaks. She wants to open the window, breathe something other than the musky wool-like atmosphere of the room, but it’s hard to do when Kakashi has her pinned against the wall and is fucking the life out of her.

She’s a boneless, sloppy mess. All he had wanted to do was offer her some lunch when he walked in on her, fucking herself on her fingers and moaning his name. He had tried to ignore it—they were trying to take a break from sex—but then she leaned on the bed with her ass up and cunt spread and whined her need and they haven’t really stopped since. He has no real refractory period, it seems. She only gets as much rest as he thinks she needs before another round starts and oh— _OH._

She comes again, helplessly. She feels tired and weak. Her fingers don’t even scratch his back anymore, instead barely clinging to the shoulders she has already littered with red tracts. Her weight is spread between the wall and the hands greedily clutching her ass. She is so sticky with sweat, with semen. It’s on her breasts, on her stomach, but most of it is between her legs, thick, white, and oozing and—

She feels it splash inside her, feels it add to the river of white between her legs. Sensitive, he pulls back and she slumps into the merciful nest of the bed, trying to catch her breath. She tries to make sense of the feelings in her body and her head. She is exhausted, worn, and tender. Her hips and breasts are bruised from his eager attentions, and her neck and shoulders are covered in purpling bites. Absentmindedly, she fingers one to take the edge of the burning between her legs, but she’s wrong. It only makes the unfathomable ache worse.

That’s the craziness of it all. Even after all of it, she still wants more of him. Even the insistent lap of his tongue against her aching, red entrance, both cleaning her up and making her wetter, messier, hotter and _there, there, there, THERE_ \--isn’t enough to quell the fire in her marrow. It’s almost a relief when she feels him take her from behind. She yelps at the suddenness of it all, jumping on all fours before the pleasure numbs her brain and her arms give out from under her. It doesn’t stop him. If anything, it eggs him on more, the sight of her being taken by him, ass up as her cheek drags across the sheets, moaning like a cheap port-whore. She wonders if he’s ever seen one. She wonders if he even knows the word and what it means. All she knows is that he’s set a punishing pace and damn, if she doesn’t want more.

Instinct is leading him. She can feel it in the way he holds her hips, in his thrusts—frenzied, chaotic. She tries to meet him, but there’s no rhythm—no rhyme to match because he can’t decide on what pace, what angle he likes best. He’s pursuing his orgasm blindly and pleasure pounds into her, heady and insistent, to the brink of pain. She can feel the precipice so close that she can almost taste it and the fact that it eludes her is maddening. The sweetness of it cuts into her like a razor’s edge and she feels like bleeding sugar.

Something in her voice, hoarse as it is, must have alerted him to this because suddenly she’s being shifted about. She is pulled more flushed against him. She is presented to him in all her dripping glory, but his hands don’t grip her hips. Instead, one braces them on the bed while the other is on her abdomen and _presses…_

“Fffuck!” She cries out, one hand buried in his hair while she tries to help relieve the burden on a shaking arm. Her entire body is shaking. She’s torn between processing the pleasure and how massive he suddenly feels inside her. She stops shortly after though. There’s no use pretending she can think anymore and she ruts against him mindlessly, wailing her pleasure in garbled attempts of his name.

“Kakashhh—Ka— _Kakaashhhhhi_ —”

Her orgasm hits her like a battering ram. She doesn’t even realize she’s cumming until she feels the rictus straining her body and realizes she’s wailing loud enough that they can probably hear her onshore. It’s a miracle that neither of them have suffered any hearing loss, but she doubts Kakashi notices as he ruts into her from behind, desperately chasing after the same blinding star that has already swept her up and sent her back to Earth. Shakily, she reaches between their legs to trace the wet edge of their joining and shudders to her toes.

She orgasms again, smaller this time. More manageable in her hyper-sensitized state. Unlike the blinding event horizon from before, it feels like being buoyed by a gentle warm ocean, and it’s thankfully enough to bring him over the edge.

She reaches behind her head to hold him to her. His orgasm is a violent affair. She can feel his teeth grit by her ear, the agonized sigh of her name. His body trembles against hers with the force of it all and he grunts harshly in her ear, panting and moaning with sweet abandon as he fills her for the last time. When he is done, they both collapse in bed, too tired to keep themselves upright. Gingerly, he separates from her as they catch their breath. Both are sore and spent, trembling with exertion.

It feels like such a chore to breathe. Every gasp she takes feels like a marathon, and she shudders at the thought of more complicated movements when she feels herself being scooped up. The motion isn’t smooth at all—it’s halting and punctuated by aching hisses—but she is eventually gathered into her lover’s arms where a tender kiss is pressed into the crown of her head.  It’s a sharp contrast to the previous violence of their lovemaking, but thoroughly enjoyable. If this is another face of his attentions, she will gladly accept it, and lays beside him peacefully as he strokes her hair and showers her with adorations.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they go on a date and Kakashi finally changes back.

The last day of Kakashi’s transformation came swifter than either cared to admit. She had woken up later that day on purpose as if by turning her back on the risen sun, she could also deny reality a little longer. When it didn’t work, she wanted to just lay about and sulk in bed with the sheets a bit. It may have been a tad overdramatic, but the melancholy that had wrapped itself around her heart that morning demanded it. Unfortunately, Kakashi wasn’t taking any of it. If Sakura had become unusually lazy by the turn of events, he had become more industrious and quickly roused her from bed to commandeer one of the rowboats. After all, they had a date.

At first, Sakura was skeptical. A row about the waves didn’t seem like a spectacular date idea given their particular histories, but he promised her that they were going to a festival. She got in the boat wondering how they were going to manage a 12-hour journey to the nearest inhabited island in such a small vessel, but it turned out to only be an hour-long ride. Just on the other side of their supposedly deserted island was a small fishing community celebrating their harvest, and Sakura made a mental note to update the maps later to reflect this.

The festival itself was small, just a few stalls set up in what looked to be the main gathering area. It was sparse now, but the people setting up promised a more lively affair later in the evening after the sunset. They couldn’t stay until then, but looked around at what little was there. With all the people milling about, she took his hand without thought and only realized what she had done by the third stall they passed. Self-conscious—though how could she be given what they’d done over the past few days?—she made to pull away, but he caught her hand with his, reassured her with his touch. There was no need to be afraid here in this place where no one knew them. It was so remote that no one would recognize them by who they were. Here, they were two normal, everyday lovers on a date. Best to enjoy it while they could.

In the end, they walked the festival ground three times. It was still a small, sparse place, but they couldn’t bear to leave it so soon—couldn’t bear to part their hands just yet. It was only when the sun was getting long that they decided to head back to their ship, a few purchases in hand.

Set-up would take a bit more of their time. The crew would not return until tomorrow, so it was just the two of them as they cleaned the boat and prepared for a final hoorah later that night. Sakura couldn’t help the nervous flutter in her stomach as she spaced the decorations apart. In all her life, she’d never really been to a party with just two people. All the parties she’d ever been to were loud, crowded, and full of alcohol and shanties—pirate parties. Now that she thought about it, she’d never been on a proper—honorable—date until today. The thought of another proper date later unnerved her. To be honest, she was afraid of messing up.

That was the thought that carried her onto the main deck later that night. Deciding to surprise each other, they remained on separate halves of the boat until now. Since they finished decorating the boat, Sakura had scrubbed herself three times in the bath, tried on seven different outfits, and fidgeted with her dress twenty times. She ended up wearing a pale, thin thing she found at the bottom of a trunk. One of the past clients had forgotten it on the boat, and while it was certainly impractical for a life of sea-faring and probably out of fashion by at least a decade, it was also the nicest thing she owned.

Taking a steadying breath, she forced herself through the cabin door and found herself quickly having that breath of air stolen from her. It was silly in a way. She had spent the entire afternoon with Kakashi preparing the deck. She knew exactly what to expect, and yet it was still such a breathtaking surprise to see the lantern strings they bought at the festival all aglow. Displayed earlier at the stall, they were pretty. Strung up underneath a starry sky on a balmy night, they were gorgeous.

Kakashi, who had been lingering by the railing, moved to her side at once. She scanned the outfit he chose, a white shirt and the dark breeches they’d found in one of the storage trunks a few days ago. It was a better fit on him, but still slightly tight across the chest. If he minded, it didn’t show on his face as he extended a long-fingered hand towards her.

“May I escort milady to the refreshments?” he asked, indicating to the table placed near the railing. Part of her was tempted to roll her eyes. Give Kakashi a pair of legs for a few days and he suddenly became a dramatic ass.

But instead, her body moved with the faint memory of her mother’s etiquette training, her arms and legs creaking into a very stiff, rusty curtsy as she accepted his hand.

They dined lightly on fruit, bread, poultry, and wine. Sakura tried to enjoy it while she could. Once they left the island, it would be back to meals of largely salted meats and stiff starch pucks until their next big job came through. But those were captain’s thoughts. She should’ve been paying attention to what little time she had left with her human companion.

After dinner, Kakashi invited her to dance. He had no idea how to dance and there was no music—they were too far away to hear anything from the festival on the other side of the island—but it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. He still took her hand and let her lead him in one of the simple waltzes she’d learned as a girl, following where her hands urged them with their push and pull. Timing was something that didn’t seem to come naturally to him—understandable because what was time to the immortal anyway?—but Kakashi moved with such grace that she had a hard time believing that she wasn’t the one born without legs. Eventually, she gave control over to him. They weren’t waltzing anymore—they hadn’t been for a while—and merely rocked together in a small circle, twirling when the mood struck them, but it delighted him all the same.

Her cheek against his chest, she asked “So what next?”

“Star-gazing,” he replied, and they separated long enough for him to lay a blue blanket across the floor of the deck before they both climbed onto the fabric. To her, it felt like every other time she’d lain on the deck, but she wondered how he felt to be looking at the stars at this odd new height. How would he look back on the feeling of the hard planks under his spine?

“What’s that one?”

Sakura followed the path of his outstretched arm and peered out into the night. “That’s part of the Summer Triangle.”

He pointed out another one, and then another one. At first, she obliged him with the names, but she shook her head. “You know these already. I know you do, so now it’s your turn. What’s that one?”

She pointed at a cluster of stars over on the left.

“The fish hook.”

“And that one?”

He peered out into the distance and gathered the shape in his head. “The unicorn.”

“And this one?” She pointed to herself with a laugh. She had expected an echo from him, but the laughter was burned away by the steadfastness of his gaze, replaced by a simmering heat as he traced the edge of her jaw with his hand.

“The most beautiful creature I know.”

They stopped talking then, and for once, the silence did not paralyze her. When she was younger, it petrified her, but here it felt holy. Words were mere pollution here. Frail, imprecise, brittle things that failed where touch did not. It was odd to think about. Billions upon billions of words in the universe, and she would never be able to tell him how she felt about him quite as well as in a kiss.

They fell into each other on the blanket, lips meeting in slow, unhurried meldings that left her toes curling. The heat within her skin kept its steady simmer and she felt it bloom inside of her, threading into her face, her chest, her stomach. She wanted to share it with him, this tapestry of their warmth, and she leaned up to suckle on his pulse as she gripped him in her hand, pumping slowly. He groaned at her ministrations, pleased, and she kept at it as he rapidly shed them of their clothes.

When they were finally naked, they both stopped and marveled at each other for a while as the weight of the moment bore down on them.

She moved first, grasping his hand to close it over her breast. She felt her flesh mold under his fingers, felt him twin the motion until her nipples were stiff peaks in his palms. She tried not to think about things too much and instead savored the feel of his hair in her hands and the friction of his muscles against her moistening center. He drew her into a kiss as he sat up and slowly drifted down her body, paying reverence to her with his own flesh, pressing affection into her with his hands and making her holy with his mouth. By the time he was seated between her legs, they were both smiling and giddy, drunk on love, desire, and anticipation.

She did not have to wait long for the first press of his lips to her center. She didn’t stop smiling, but her lids fluttered shut, cooing as the light fizzled behind her eyes. Hands cupping her behind, he held her over him, pulling him towards her as he lay down on the blanket. His tongue was insistent, tugging moans like unspooled thread from her lips. Her thighs quaked next to his ears. Bent over him like this, she imagined the picture they made as she rode his tongue, of the path of their scars and the shooting star it made, and she tore herself off of his face with a shuddering groan. 

When he tried to gather her back onto his mouth, she pushed down on his shoulder. "Not without you," she declared breathlessly, and slowly lowered herself onto his erection.

The first intrusion brought with it a delicious ache. It always did, but here, it was sublime. She felt him work his way into her and she bit her lip at the feeling of it as it stretched and opened her like a flower in bloom. By the time she was fully seated, she felt her throat full of the stars in the sky and rocked her hips once against him to feel that familiar sweet grind, clenching tightly around him. He responded in kind, clutching her hips tighter and groaned deep in his throat as he sought deeper entrance into her.

And so their dance began, the slow melding of mouths and hips and skin on skin. She couldn't understand it, why they kept their pace so unhurried. At the point when time was of the upmost essence, when it seemed to slip out all around them was when they were the slowest with their lovemaking. But she couldn't feel the rush. Not when his teeth were on her nipple and he felt so exquisite inside her. This feeling was made to be savored, and she continued the languid drag of her hips, drawing herself up fully before slowly lowering herself down.

She repeated the motion endlessly, rolling her hips as he surged against her, powerful and insistent. It felt as if she were waves battering against a mountain, flinging herself headlong into heady abandonment. Her fingernails dug crescents into his chest as she choked back a moan. She didn't want to hear herself. She wanted to hear him, every pant and breathless gasp she could greedily steal from him to stow away in her trove of memories. He seemed to have the same idea as well, and so they loved each other in silence.

She hung over him with her head bowed and eyes shut. She was close, achingly so. She could feel her release charging in every pore on her body, felt the tension rise on every hair on her skin. She was so close to him that she could feel every labored breath he gave and she loved that they loved face to face. That she could feel him like this, simply lean down and kiss him if she wanted to. And gods, she wanted to.

He beat her to it though. Threading a hand into her hair, he drew her down. Drew her into his mouth, into a kiss, thick and heady and electrifying as the rest of him. Not for the first time, she marveled at the complexity of the creature beneath her. It was so easy to forget that the mouth that had worshipped her was the same one that had killed men, especially when he cried out so softly from the pleasure she gave him.

Feeling himself near, he beckoned her towards his mouth once more and she rushed to follow. One last kiss before they tumbled off the edge. It was gentle and passionate, just as he always was, and as she felt herself splinter into light, she swore she felt her heart burst with love for him.

They recovered slowly on the blanket, limbs tangled and weighted with lovers' hazy afterglow. Pillowed on his chest, she felt warm and comforted, and smiled as he kissed a lock of her hair on an indulgent whim that sent them both laughing.

It flashed like a minnow, silvery and quickly out of sight. Kakashi paused at the odd twinge in his ankles, tried to quickly brush it aside, but Sakura could clearly see the darkness clouding his face, the small seed of pain like a shadow in his eyes.

This was how the end begins.

They got up without sound. Though they did not move quickly, they moved purposefully, solemnly across the deck as they picked up their clothes. The joy of the previous moment was gone, but it didn't stop either of them from watching the other dress and imagining it under different circumstances. An existance where it was ordinary rather than a last moment to be savored.

When they were done, the two descended down the loading ramp onto the beach. Sakura opted to leave her boots on the ship. She enjoyed feeling the water and sand between her toes, and it would be a nice distraction from the ache in her chest.

They walked down the shore aimlessly. There was no telling when he would change back. He was at the mercy of a capricious waiting game, and try as she might to ignore it, it was an oppressive weight on her mind.

Her first instinct was to babble. Until her dying day, it would be her worst trait--words dripping out of her mouth like the yolk of a cracked egg--but she needed to fill the silence. Needed to tell him how wonderful all of this was while she could.

It started off small--inane even.

"It's not fair, you know. Your height. You were already taller than me as a mershark. Getting to be taller than me as a human--completely unfair."

It was a petty, petulant thing to say. She would've shot off her own foot to swallow it into her mouth if he hadn't laughed just then, warm and golden as honey.

"Yes, well...fate can be a cruel mistress," he teased.

It was easier to talk after that, and they talked for what felt like hours. It didn't matter about what--fish species, the weather--even mundane ship duties--they could've talked for weeks about it all with rapt attention.

When the conversation naturally lulled, Sakura gave a quiet sigh as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I'm going to miss talking like this. Hearing your voice like this," she confessed. It was such a different sound from his usual speech. It wasn't punctuated by the bubbling hiss of air and blood. There was no pain here, no labor. Like this, his voice was only soft and soothing.

"Would you like to do this again sometime?" he asked, and she could feel her heart immediately leap into her throat. Could feel the shape of the "Yes" that wanted to bubble forth--

But she bit it back. Bit her lip and looked away lest her eyes betray her.

"I'll leave it up to you."

"I'll surprise you then," he replied quietly, "Maybe for your birthday?"

"Why don't you just turn human forever then?"

The question rushed out of her, curt and brusque and crude as the tar they used to seal the boat. The instinct to be embarrassed burned within her, but it never made to her eyes, already burning with honest curiosity. Why couldn't he just stay like this forever?

His answer was simple.

"You wouldn't like that," he replied gently.

Her first instinct was indignation. It was more of the patronizing he had given her before--but the more she sat with the cryptic answer, the more she realized he was right. As nice as it was to do normal “human” things, this was not the man she fell in love with—not entirely, anyway.

In the back of her mind, she could still remember the first time his tail had curled around her hand, a feeling that haunted her into her present day.

A grimace floated over his face, snapping her from reverie as if it had been a flimsy trail of lace. They walked closer to the crawl of the tide. As he shed his clothes, she held out her palms as she waited for him to finish. The idea was that she'd keep them safe until next time, but held in her hands like this, still warm from his skin, she knew she'd never let them go.

She watched him walk towards the water. He stepped backwards into it, their eyes never leaving each other until it touched his waist and he had to turn away.

Eyes trained on his back, she watched him delve beneath the waves and waited. There was a soft flare of light beneath the water, as if the ocean itself had pulsed to life, and then Kakashi surfaced with his usual tail and gills.

As he treaded the water, Sakura held the clothes firmly to her chest and they move parallel back towards the boat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who waited patiently for this last chapter to be finished. I was finishing my most difficult semester of grad school yet, so I didn't have time to focus on finishing this chapter until now. 
> 
> I know the fandom for Kakasaku has been dropping off lately, but it blows my mind how many people left kudos and comments on this story. Thank you for everyone who left their love for this story and the journey of Mershark!Kakashi and Sakura the Pirate Queen. 
> 
> (Also, please let me know if anyone would actually like more of these two. I have one more potential story I can do for these two, but I'm not sure if anyone would actually be interested.)


End file.
